eir ways, and their tricks of fighting."

"_Shahbash_ (bravo)!" exclaimed the company; "and what are you
going to do now?"

"What am I going to do now? Why, fight the accursed infidels, of
course!" replied the duffadar.

"That is indeed fortunate," said the headman of the village, "for our
spies tell us that the Feringhis intend attacking us. We shall now be
able to make you the general of our forces, and since you have been so
wise as to learn the cunning strategy of the infidels we shall of a
surety kill them all, and send their souls to hell."

"Oh yes, certainly, if I am here," hastily murmured Faiz Talab, adding
as he regained his composure and the Oriental art of fluently telling
the thing that is not true, "but unfortunately I have urgent business
over the Khost, and cannot delay. To-morrow at crack of dawn I must be
on my way."

"Our kismet is indeed bad, but let the will of God be done!" was the
pious rejoinder of the most villainous-looking of the surrounding
cut-throats.

Night having now fallen, and the lighting arrangements of an Afghan
village being limited to a wood fire, travellers and villagers began one
by one to roll themselves up in their wadded quilts, and each man,
hugging his sword, dropped off to sleep.

Just before dawn Faiz Talab was awakened by someone rudely shaking him.
"Get up, oh indolent one, the English are upon us, and we look to you to
help us to defeat them. Here, take this rifle and these twenty rounds of
ammunition, and come and show us how best we may arrange our battle
line."

Up jumped the duffadar, and hastily shook together his sleeping wits.
Here was a pretty dilemma! Evidently something had occurred to
precipitate action on the part of the British, and it had been found
inexpedient, or perhaps impossible, to wait for the receipt of his
report. Meanwhile the duffadar was in the exceedingly uncomfortable
position of him who finds himself between the devil and the deep sea. As
the chosen leader, thus miraculously fallen from heaven on the eve of
battle, he had become so important a figure that it was impossible for
him to take up a modest position in the rear; indeed, a bullet through
the head would have been the immediate rejoinder to any such suggestion
on his part. Forced thus by circumstance into the forefront of the
battle, he turned his back to the devil and stood forth to face the deep
sea, and the great waves of British soldiers which surged across it to
the a